


Induction

by poisonandperfection



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Drug Abuse, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:25:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonandperfection/pseuds/poisonandperfection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vanessa Ives and Victor Frankenstein are foster siblings, roommates, college students, and in need of some serious therapy. Instead, they get Mina Murray, back from the metaphorical dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Has it occurred to anyone else that every character in this show has WAY too many issues?

"She's having an affair."

"In the blue? She found _two_ men that are interested in her?"

"One man."

"Oh, hm. Still."

"That banker just lost his job."

"Why?"

"Downsizing, probably. I don't know-- nothing he did. He wasn't expecting it. Just look at him." They peered out the Starbucks window together and Vanessa shook her head. "At least he doesn't have a family."

Victor glanced at his phone, hit the button to display the time. "Where the hell is Dorian?"

"He'll get here. Don't be impatient. He was in bed when he told me he was on his way."

Victor huffed an irritated sigh, rolled his neck, glanced back and met the eyes of a curious barista, who glanced away again quickly. They were an eye-catching duo and he knew it-- distant and pale in matching monochrome, looking more like blood siblings than they had any right to. He didn't bother to smile.

"Don't glare. Maybe she thinks you're cute," Vanessa suggested, not looking away from the window.

There were unsettling, arcane tattoos emerging from her neckline. There was dried blood under his nails. "She thinks we're creepy."

Vanessa laughed, sudden and bright, and turned away to smile at him. "Yeah, she does. But she still thinks you're cute." She lunged forward to ruffle his hair, but she wasn't the only one with intuition, and he bolted back in his seat and ducked under her hand. Unfortunately, the sudden shift was slightly too far for his center of gravity-- his chair rocked back onto two legs, and for an indeterminate infinity, he tried to balance, watching Vanessa’s expression change from surprise to amusement. He failed to right himself and went over backwards in about half a second, legs flying up, head plummeting down. He braced himself for a collision with the floor, and instead collided with something softer, his legs continuing their upward journey with the help of his chair and kneeing whoever was behind him as he crumpled awkwardly back against his savior.

"Fuck!" he heard himself say belatedly. He sounded a little winded. He took stock—none the worse for wear, except a cramped neck and bruises to his tailbone and his pride.

Vanessa couldn't stop laughing.

"Fuck me," said the person behind him and he looked up at Ethan Chandler with a deep and profound scowl. "You okay, kid?” He’d caught the chair with his shins, likely on accident. “I go to the bathroom for two minutes--"

"Be quicker next time and you'll catch me."

Ethan reached down, prodded Victor around slightly and righted his chair again, with its passenger still attached. "Sit still, dipshit. I'm tryin' to help you."

"What a gentleman," said someone else, and Victor's scowl deepened even further, almost comically.

Vanessa was still gasping against giggles, but she reached out anyway. "Dorian!"

He edged around Ethan, sliding a hand along his back as he went, and slithered into an empty chair with serpentine grace. "Vanessa." He laced well-manicured fingers through hers, and Victor rolled his eyes, turned away.

"Lighten up, Vic," Ethan muttered softly in his ear, dropping back into his chair, the last at the table.

Dorian and Vanessa ignored his perfectly audible, "I don't like him," with poise and grace.

"How are you?" Dorian was asking sweetly.

"Just fine," she offered, smiling back at him. "How's the show?"

"Terrible," he sighed. "I'm never becoming a concert pianist. There's a flutist who can't count and the third violist is always a quartertone out of key. It's a disaster. You'll come to see it, won't you?"

"Of course. I can't wait.”

“I’ve reserved you all seats—even your little brother,” he added, with a pointed glance at Victor, who didn’t acknowledge it. “It was a bit harder than I expected, but I got them front and center. Brona, too, Ethan.”

“Thanks, Dorian—it means the world to her to be included in stuff that that.”

Victor’s lip curled. Vanessa kicked him under the table with a pointed shoe and he flinched and resettled his face into a forcibly bland expression. “Thank you,” he choked out, “I’m sure I’ll be enthralled.”

Vanessa tried not to smile and struggled, lips twitching. “So will I. We should show up at seven-thirty?”

“Only if you want the preshow of me cursing at the brass section…”

“I wouldn’t miss it. I think we’re going to meet for dinner beforehand—dinner and drinks, and then the concert?" 


	2. Chapter 2

"Vanessa. Vanessa, can you hear me?"

"Peter?"

Victor winced, shook his head. "It's me, Vanessa. It's Victor. You're having an episode. Do you have your meds?"

She blinked slowly. "We aren't blood relatives, you know," she blurted. "You aren’t at risk for it.” And then, "Your father. It was your father, wasn't it."

Victor took a deep breath. "Yes. It was. Breathe, Vanessa. We'll get through it."

“Fuck. He’s coming. Shit, Victor, I can—feel it. I can feel it, and it’s definitely him—“ Her voice cracked.

Victor hissed out a breath. "Alright. Alright, Vanessa. We won't let him hurt you, you know that. Say it with me, you know what to say. Hail Mary, full of grace--"

The words spilled out like she couldn’t control them. "Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae, Amen. Ave Maria, gratia plena--"

Victor had never been good at comfort, but he sat with his sister until her medication brought her down, into a drowsy haze.

He texted Ethan from her phone, reluctantly. Vanessa's had an episode. It's Victor. Egg rolls or spring?

Ethan pulled into the nearest parking space just as the Chinese delivery car was driving away. The smell of liquor rolled in when Victor opened the door. "Hey. I was thinkin' Scooby Doo. We could watch it on Netflix and--"

"Did you drive here drunk?"

"'M not drunk, Vic. I swear."

"You reek."

"I know. Had a long day. But it's been hours. Frankly, I could use a drink, but I figure I should spell you for a bit, sit with Van, eat those egg rolls. How is she?"

Victor hesitated, eyed him, and let it go. "She's fine. Worn out, a little confused. The medication is disorienting."

"I thought this new doc had things under control."

"So did I. So did she. Just... come inside."

"Thanks for tellin' me."

"I have my internship in the morning, or I'd sit up with her myself. She trusts you. I trust you more than her slimy boyfriend."

"S'nothing wrong with Dorian, Vic. He likes her. But she wouldn't like him seein' her when she ain't feeling right. Anyway, I don't have class until late. Hell, I can skip it."

"Oh, I know you like him. Just... make sure she's alright. She'll be fine by morning. You know she's too proud to let you do that."

Ethan dropped onto the couch, pulled Vanessa into his shoulder affectionately. "Hey, Van. How you feelin'?"

"I've been better. Victor called you? From my phone. He's still pretending he doesn't have your number, but he didn't want to call Dorian." She took a deep breath, shook her head tiredly, and clenched her teeth.

"Hey, hey, Van, it's fine. You can list off everything you notice, that's fine. Ain't nothing we're ashamed of. We trust you." He cast an amused glance over his shoulder at Victor, who looked significantly less pleased with his sister's tired babble. "What do you say we watch a movie?"

"That sounds good. That sounds fine."

"We could watch somethin' animated, if you like. Not much to notice there."

"That sounds good," she repeated, but her voice was warmer, fonder.

Victor sometimes found it draining, living with her-- she never called him out when she could help it, but he knew perfectly well that she saw through him perfectly, knew everything about him that he tried to hide. Somehow, that never bothered Ethan in the slightest.

Two semesters ago, Ethan and Vanessa had a psych class together. He'd come over once or twice, watched terrible horror movies and eaten pizza and studied a little for their first exam. Then Vanessa had had a bad spell, spent two weeks in the hospital. Other than Victor and Malcolm, Ethan was the only one who came to see her. She outed him viciously, explicitly, in front of her family. He came over the day she was discharged with an Evil Dead box set.

They'd been nearly inseparable ever since-- which was hellish for Victor. He shut the door to his room quietly and sat down at his desk, rubbed his face with his hands. He had things to do, but it was hard to focus, hard to swallow down the flutter of anxiety in his chest. He dumped a little box of white pills across his desk, counted all but two back into the container, frowned, and then dumped out one more and swallowed all three.

 

* * *

 

“So, how you feelin’, kiddo?”

“Not so good,” Vanessa mumbled into his shoulder, too dazed to be dishonest. “Nauseous. But it wasn’t so bad this time… No bugs.”

“That’s good, Van, that’s good.” He looked down at her and smiled, reaching over to ruffle her hair. “You sound pretty tired. Wanna go to bed?”

“Won’t be able to sleep… I’m just groggy. My medication.”

“That’s just fine, kid. I know you’ve seen me worse off more’n once.”

“There’s whiskey under the sink. I’m on so many antipsychotics that this is as close as I’ll get to drinking with you, I think.” The length of the sentence seemed to exhaust her, and she sighed out a slow breath.

“Don’t you cater to my drinkin’ problem, Van. I can wait a few hours.”

“You’ve been drinking recently. You shouldn’t have driven."

“Couldn’t leave you with that little snot, now could I?”

She laughed. “Thank you,” she mumbled quietly. “…thank you. Can we watch the episode with Professor Hatecraft?”

“Aw hell yeah we can.”

 

* * *

 

"Vic." There were warm, broad hands rubbing over his shoulders. "C'mon, Vic." He could hear a familiar drawl, faint and low in his ear, smell liquor, leather, spice, and gunpowder. He shifted sleepily. It wasn't the first time he'd dreamt about Ethan. They were almost always very pleasant dreams. "VIC." He startled awake, slid down in his desk chair and nearly off the bottom.

"Ethan!" he yelped, batting at the hands on his shoulders, scrambling clumsily up out of the chair.

"Hey, kid, sorry-- I wouldn't have woken you up, but it's ten. I just dropped Van off at the doctor. She left a message last night and he made a spot for her this morning. I thought you had your internship?"

Victor blinked at him, blank and bewildered for two full seconds. Then, "Fuck," he snarled, lunging for his phone on the bedside. It was 10:08. He was hours late. Professor Van Hellsing was going to--

"You missed it, huh?"

Victor dialed the number, glowered at him as it rang. "What gave it away?" he snapped out.

Ethan held up his hands in surrender, laughing. "I made breakfast, if you're hungry. Come on out when you're done."

"You did what? You don't live here, Eth-- Professor! Yes, I'm so sorry, Professor, this is Victor Frankenstein." He made a shooing motion, backed Ethan out of his room and slammed the door in his face.

Ethan had made omelets.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 "Victor. I thought it would be Ethan?"

"Ethan's drunk on our couch."

"You provoked him again. But a peace offering-- that's decent of you."

"It isn't my fault that your best friend is a violent bastard with a short fuse."

"It isn't _my_ fault that you think provoking post-traumatic veterans into a blind rage is foreplay."

" _Foreplay_. Christ. Get in the car, Vanessa."

She was peering into his face intently. "You shouldn't be driving, either. Both of you are going to kill yourselves at this rate. I can take a cab, you know."

He blinked and looked away, stared out the windshield. "I'm _fine_."

"You're high as a kite." She got in the car anyway.

Victor started it, didn't respond. She let it drop and focused on her phone, instead.

"Ethan?" Victor guessed, glancing over as he pulled out of the parking lot.

"Dorian. Canceling on the concert. I don't suppose you want my ticket... Do you have any friends to bring along?"

"In point of _fact_ ," Victor snapped back, casting her an offended look. "I do. Why are you canceling?"

"Something came up. Malcolm needs me for the evening." Victor looked like he was going to press the issue, so she continued. "It's Professor Van Hellsing, isn't it."

He blinked, then scowled. "It's not. He's already going. I have a... patient. He's terminal. I thought he might like it."

Vanessa's face softened and she paused in her frenetic typing. "That's sweet, Victor. I'll tell Dorian not to cancel my ticket."

"Thank you."

She called Malcolm Murray next, and was still on the phone, arguing quietly and intensely but cryptically, when she walked in the front door.

"It's solid. She's _here_. I told you. Yes."

Ethan was slumped on the couch with the bottle of whiskey, watching something on television. She made a sharp gesture and he fumbled for the remote to mute it.

"Malcolm. Just pick me up." She jabbed end call and glanced at Ethan and then at Victor. "I have to go change." She was wearing sweatpants and an undershirt. "Victor, tell Ethan about the concert." Her bedroom door slammed shut behind her.

"What?" Ethan asked, slightly slurred and bewildered, staring at Victor.

Victor sat on the opposite end of the couch. "Our father needs her for something," he offered. "She's canceling on tonight. I don't know what they're doing. Sometimes they do this."

"Then it's just the three of us, huh?"

"No. I'm bringing someone else."

Ethan looked transparently surprised, and not entirely pleased. "Oh, okay." There was a pause, and then, "You call your dad 'Malcolm'?"

Victor shrugged. "Yes. I was fifteen when he adopted me... Vanessa was seventeen when he took her in. We've never called him anything else."

Ethan frowned. "Ain't right."

"He's not much of a father," Victor offered by way of excuse. "I think Vanessa might be gone tomorrow, too. If she misses Abnormal Psych, you should take notes for her."

"Gone tomorrow? What the hell's she doin', Vic?"

"How should I know? She doesn't tell me."

Vanessa burst out of her room again in running shoes and black jeans. "I'll be back. Ethan, make sure Victor eats. Victor, make sure Ethan eats.

"Ha ha," Victor sneered. "Be careful. Make sure _you_ eat."

"Be careful," Ethan repeated, "Don't forget your meds, kid."

She waved a ziplock bag of pills and she was out the door.

 

* * *

 

Ethan craned his neck to see out the window and watched her slide into the passenger's side of a black car. "That's a Jaguar. Your old man rich?"

"Yes."

Ethan leaned back, swallowed a gulp of whiskey. "What's he do?" He offered the bottle to Victor, who was visibly worried, but Victor shook his head, stood, and disappeared into his room. Ethan sighed and closed his eyes-- there was just no dealing with some people.

Apparently Victor was less one of those people than he'd thought, because a few seconds later, the couch shifted and settled as Victor sat down again. He opened his eyes. Victor didn't speak for a solid ten minutes. Ethan closed his eyes again, made a little progress on the whiskey, wondered if he should unmute the television or if it would drive Victor away again.

When Victor finally spoke, it was entirely without warning. "He does surveying work, and he writes about it. Vanessa and I used to joke about him being the next Napoleon Chagnon." He hesitated a moment. "Napoleon Chagnon--"

Ethan opened his eyes. "I know who that is, kid. I've taken Anthropology 101."

"Well, good. The point is that he's a racist ass and he has no business writing about anyone's culture. But people still like to read about /savages/, so he makes money off his little expeditions."

"And your mom?"

"His wife?" Victor shrugged. "She left him."

"Sorry, Vic."

"What do I care? I was old enough that he didn't matter to me much. My mother's dead and my father's in a home, so Malcolm Murray fed me until I could move out."

Ethan was quiet for a long moment. Victor reached out and it took him a moment to realize that he wanted the bottle and pass it over. He'd apparently been holding two white pills in his hand the whole time-- they stuck slightly to his palm as he dropped them in his mouth and washed them down with a gulp of liquor.

He took another swallow and passed the bottle back. "Thank you."

"'S your whiskey."

Victor shrugged, acknowledging this to be true.

It was Ethan's turn to stretch out a long, considering pause before saying what he wanted to say. "What were those pills? Anxiety stuff? I've seen you take 'em before."

Victor laughed. "Pain medication."

"You in pain?"

"You could say that."

A short pause.

"Are you--"

"Yes."

"How the hell do you know what I was gonna say?"

"I can guess. Maybe I've learned something from Vanessa. Yes, I'm addicted to them."

Ethan raised his eyebrows. "I was gonna ask if you were sure it was a good plan, mixing pills and alcohol."

Victor blushed, two spots of pink high on his pale cheeks. He looked feverish more than embarrassed. "It's fine."

"If you say so. Can I unmute Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark?"

"Whatever you want." Victor tipped his head back and closed his eyes, letting himself relax. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies to Napoleon Chagnon, who is only in this story because Victor is trying to sound smart in front of Ethan, and whose anthropological honor was found to be entirely unmarked after an in-depth investigation.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tags have been updated to include it but in case you didn't see-- a trigger warning for prostitution on this section. Mina's tangled up in some shit, as it were.

Malcolm didn't look at Vanessa as she slid into the car. "Where."

"Downtown-- West side, near the interstate."

"Do you have an address?"

"Victor says hello," she lied politely. "It's good to see you."

"An _address._ "

"Yes, and I already searched it. I know how to get there. Just drive."

He drove slightly too fast and recklessly—always had. Vanessa held onto the side of her seat and wondered if she knew anyone who drove safely and what it said about her that she doubted it.

"Are you sure she's there?"

Vanessa hesitated. It had been years since she'd disappeared, and years since Vanessa had held any real hope of seeing her again. "Yes. Turn onto Liberty."

They drove in silence, except for the sound of the engine and the increasingly infuriating barely-audible mumble of the radio. Halfway there, Vanessa lunged forward and jabbed the power button with a finger, hissing out a breath of relief at the ensuing peace. She saw Malcolm glance at her sidelong, but he didn't comment.

 

* * *

 

 

She could see the lights on and the party spilling onto the front porch of the broken-down little house when they arrived. She didn't tell Malcolm to stop until they were a solid block further down the street. "Park here, alongside the road. And wait in the car."

"I'm going with you."

"You think you won't make them uncomfortable? You're a rich old man, Malcolm. They won't even speak to you." She tried to keep the sneer out of her voice. "Wait in the car."

He sat back with a wordless snarl and she slid out of the car, walked back to the party alone.

There were only a few people on the porch now-- lounging, smoking, drunk and mussed and glassy-eyed-- and one couple pressed up against the wall, a bored looking girl smoking while a man pushed his hands up her skirt. Vanessa picked her way around them, and the boy sitting on the steps, and short of a few glances, received no attention whatsoever as she opened the door and stepped inside.

The house was a mess-- very little furniture, dirty, poorly finished, stinking of too many bodies in too small a space. The lighting was terrible, likely on purpose. A solid half of the people were dancing to a driving beat that seemed to have no accompanying treble, but the rest were along the walls, drinking and talking and, in more than one instance, pressed into confused amorous tangles on a filthy couch or armchair.

It looked vaguely like a few fraternity parties Vanessa had seen-- it wasn't what she was expecting. She felt a sickening certainty that she would find nothing in that house, but stepped into the room, determined to be sure.

"Look!" a squealing voice rose above the music behind her. "It's Vanessa! Isn't that Vanessa? Vanessa!" She turned slowly, her heart in her throat, and--

"Mina."

She looked different, hopelessly so. She was too thin, with her hair long and wild and her dress sliding off her shivering shoulders. Her red lipstick made her skin look sallow and waxy, like a corpse. Her eyes were wide and pale and red-rimmed-- Vanessa thought involuntarily of Victor, but shook it off.

Mina was leaning against the shoulder of an equally underfed boy with a shock of wild, dark hair and a visible smudge of white powder under his nose. "Fenton, this is Van. You look like shit, Van."  She broke into mean, childish giggles as she said it, and the boy, Fenton, cackled along like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.

Vanessa tried to smile.

“Van used to be in love with me, didn’t you, Van?” She smiled almost prettily, and her dress slid off one shoulder completely. “How did you end up _here_ , Van? Are you here for me?” She giggled again and leaned back against the wall, biting coquettishly at her thumb as the hemline of her dress slid up an inch along her thigh. Vanessa tried not to notice, but she wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I just came here to see you.” she tried, calmly.

Mina’s laughter burst forth again, high and hysterical. “You’re not in love with me anymore, are you, Van? I’ve _changed._ ”

“You’re wrong,” Vanessa murmured, just above the music, steeling herself to step in closer to this strange creature. “I’m still in love with you, Mina. Why don’t you come home with me?”

Fenton stepped forward to meet her, smiled with bared teeth. “We do our business upstairs, unless he tells us otherwise. Five hundred upfront.”

Vanessa lifted her chin and stared at him. “I just want to see an old friend.”

“Then buy her time like everyone else.”

“I only—“

He stepped in between them, pushed at her chest, pressed in close and spoke low and fast. “I’m not stupid, Vanessa. She may be too high to think, but I’m not. You’re not taking her anywhere, except upstairs, to fuck.”

 

* * *

 

“Maybe she’s helping the police.”

“ _What_?”

“Maybe that’s where she goes. Van, I mean.”

Victor lifted his head and glared. “You can’t be serious.”

“Not that ridiculous. You know that thing she does—sees right through you. Fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes.”

Victor’s head dropped back again. “Yes. But it’s not like that. She just picks up on things, little details, and she can extrapolate. She’s good with people, with behavior. Intuitive. Inductive reasoning.”

“Deductive.”

“It’s _inductive_. Conan Doyle used it wrong.”

“Fine, whatever.”

“She always says that anyone with training can see everything she sees, so she wouldn’t be useful to the police. It’s just that she can’t turn it off.”

Ethan snorted. “I dunno about that. Ain’t that what she wants to do, though? Profilin’ for the FBI?”

“Yeees,” Victor acknowledged reluctantly, and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe she thinks the training will make the difference. All I know is that she wouldn’t be very useful in a crisis right now—she’s mostly good at making people angry on accident.”

 

* * *

 

“Fenton,” Vanessa tried, stepping back as he stepped forward. “You know I want to take her out of here. No one needs to know that you let her go.”

“No.”

“I can pay. Let them think I took her upstairs and left with her later. He won’t know.”

“He knows _everything_ ,” Fenton hissed. “Anyway, I don’t want her to go.” His lips curled up and his voice took on a childish lilt. “Mina’s my friend.”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes. “You only stand to gain from this, Fenton. One less way to split it—the drugs, the money, his attention…”

Fenton threw back his head and laughed, harshly. Over his shoulder, Vanessa could see Mina watching them with a vague lack of curiosity and little recognition. “Sweeten the deal a little, Vanessa.” He touched her shoulder, slid his hand down her chest. “Make it worth my while. Think how disappointed Daddy would be. Now why would I do that?”

She held still, refused to shudder, refused to shove him away. “Do you know who Mina’s father is?”

“Favors from old men,” he spat. “I get enough of _those_.”  

“Not favors. Blackmail. You won’t always be sellable. You might fall out of favor. Think of it as insurance. Malcolm Murray would pay through the nose to hush this up.”

“Through the nose.” Fenton giggled, tapped his nose, glanced down at the trace of powder on his fingertip and licked it clean.  “Fine. I always knew Mina had a rich daddy hiding somewhere—other than _him_ , I mean. Malcolm Murray. I’ll remember that. Thanks, Vanessa.” He flashed her a smile and turned away, wandered off into the crowd.  

Vanessa let out a breath and stepped in, gathered Mina’s bewildered and shivering form into her arms and held her tight, until she could feel the girl’s heartbeat against her chest. “Let’s go home,” she breathed into Mina’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Mina agreed, and smiled brightly as Vanessa stepped away. “Van!” She seemed surprised and delighted to see her. Vanessa shuddered. Mina pressed a sticky, lipstick kiss to the corner of her lips before she could pull away. She was impossible to read, to predict like this. Vanessa hated it.

“No.”

“No?” Mina looked confused. “Isn’t that—“

“Why don’t you just come with me, Mina,” she offered gently, and took one cold hand in hers, leading her patiently out the door and down the block, Mina stumbling and giggling after her.

Malcolm’s lips curled into a sneer when Vanessa opened the back door of the car with a smear of red lipstick on her mouth. “Did—“

“Come on, Mina, get in the car.”

Mina hesitated. “Is that Dad?” She pointed at her father with an unsteady hand. “I don’t want to see—I don’t feel good. What’s going on? Where are we?”

“We’re going home, love,” Vanessa murmured, turning her and folding her pliant little form into the back seat, then sliding in after her. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Mina agreed easily.

Malcolm stared in the rearview mirror, face pale.

“Malcolm.” Vanessa leaned forward and spoke softly. “Drive the goddamn car.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ethan tucked his jacket around Brona’s slender shoulders. “There y’go, darlin’.”

She gave him a fond and affectionate smile and pulled it closer. “This damn thing smells awful,” she complained. “Like sweat. And whiskey. You’re a mess, Ethan Chandler.” She leaned against his shoulder and he slid his arm around her.

“Excuse me— _Ethan_ , move down, I need the end seats.” It was Victor, waving his hands at them. Brona and Ethan had taken the last seats in their reserved row and now Victor, it seemed, had arrived and was taking offense. They shifted down two seats and both craned their necks to see Victor’s mystery date.

The wide-eyed man behind Victor smiled at them, raising a hand automatically in what was half a wave, half a self-conscious gesture to cover the scarring wrapped around his hairless scalp. Victor offered him an arm and patiently provided a fixed point around which the man moved to the seat next to Brona, with small and shuffling and slightly unsteady steps.

“We aren’t late, are we?” Victor asked, rather loudly, scowling sternly at them for staring.

“No, no, they ain’t even started tuning up yet,” Ethan provided quickly.

Brona focused on her seatmate, who was smiling at her shyly. “I’m Brona, Brona Croft.” She offered a hand, and he took it, then seemed not to know what to do. She shook it gently, then let go, and he followed her lead.

He looked to Victor, who nodded encouragement, and then back. “Evan,” he mumbled, with that shy smile. “Evan Proteus. Victor is my doctor. You’re very pretty.”

 

* * *

  

After the show, Victor waited patiently until the rest of the audience dispersed, and held Evan’s arm very gently, making casual small talk about Scarlatti, interposed with silly anecdotes about how grating he found the soloist when not at the piano bench. Brona and Ethan stayed as well—they had evening plans with Dorian—and watched Victor’s bedside manner with poorly concealed shock. The man in tow said very little, but seemed delighted to be talked at, and Victor seemed unusually happy to oblige.

“Maybe the kid’ll make an alright doctor, after all,” Ethan muttered to his date. “Funny though—I though Van Hellsing was doin’ some kind of work with blood tests. Didn’t think he had patients.”

Victor was too busy with Evan to give more than a cursory goodbye, but regardless he was more pleasant in that evening than they had ever seen him. His patience didn’t falter when he lost his audience—he helped his charge across the dark parking lot and into his car with great care, and made sure he was comfortable before he shut the door.

Halfway around his car, someone spoke out of the evening dark in a rough, quiet voice. “Dr. Frankenstein.”

Victor glanced up, wondering if he’d imagined it, and then a strong hand closed around his throat, slamming him back against the trunk of the car and knocking the air out of his lungs. He coughed and choked and gasped against the pressure on his windpipe, and a tall figure moved towards him, squeezing a little harder against his neck. There were unwanted tears in Victor’s eyes, from the breathlessness, and he struggled to blink them away, to present his assailant with a look of composed blankness, instead of teary shock. He was not entirely successful. “Caliban,” he gasped out.

“Hello, Doctor. I see you’ve taken on another patient.”

“I thought you were—“

“Dead? No. Your procedure is more effective than you thought… though not without side effects.”

“I’ve improved it. Since your case.”

“And gotten funding? A grant? An internship? …permission for human testing?”

Caliban’s voice was light and conversational; Victor’s shook. “He knows. Evan knows I’m not a… real doctor. He’s _dying_ , Adam. He’s only twenty-six. He wants to live.”

“Does he know what you did to me?”

“No.” His voice cracked. “But he knows the risks. It _worked_ , didn’t it. You’re alive. That’s what you wanted.”

“Alive… I was homeless for six months, after you abandoned me. I—”

“I didn’t abandon you! You were _violent!_ ”

“I was afraid! I lost half of my memory. I lost everything. At the hospital, they told me I had cognitive impairments, but I can think so clearly now… Was that your work? To make sure I knew I was suffering? I can no longer focus. I can’t control my temper, or my moods.” His fingers tightened on Victor’s throat again in illustration, and he bared his teeth as Victor gaped and heaved, struggling for a breath that wouldn’t come. “I had to relearn how to _read_ , Victor. How could I hold a job? How could I afford to eat, to live? You told me you were a doctor!”

Victor flinched as if struck. “I wanted to help you,” he rasped. “Let me go, Adam. I have to take Evan back to the hospital.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Glioblastoma.”

There was a pause. Fingers tightened and loosened consideringly around Victor’s throat. “I’ll help you.”

“I don’t want your—“

“I won’t let you ruin his life as you did mine.”

“I won’t. This will be _different._ I’ve learned from my mistakes.” He seemed to crack suddenly, broke into a hoarse laugh. “Making Evan from Adam’s rib.”

“You’re no god.”

 

* * *

 

When he got back into the car, Evan Proteus was watching him curiously. “Who was that?”

The cognitive impact of his tumor confused his ability to express himself and store memory—but not his understanding. He would accept what Victor told him, but he wouldn’t believe it, if it wasn’t true.

“An old patient.”

“Like me?”

“…yes. The first one.”

“He’s very ugly.”

Victor laughed, rubbed at his neck, started the car. “No, no, he’s just been very sick.”

“Is Miss Brona sick?”

Victor glanced at him as he pulled out of the parking lot, a little too fast in his haste to leave Caliban behind. “What makes you say that?”

“She had…” He plucked at his hospital wristband. “And her hands.” He mimed shaking hands.

Victor frowned. “I don’t know. I hadn’t noticed. I’ll ask Ethan when I see him. Let’s get you back to the hospital—you must be tired.”

 


End file.
